States working to toughen laws against sex trafficking

Legislation aims to target 'pimps' with harsher penalties

In the small town of Sydney, Maine, population 4,200, a father and son were arrested Thursday on charges of sex trafficking for running a brothel out of their home with half a dozen women. That same day, two people in Litchfield, Maine, population 3,600, were arrested on the same charges for conducting a similar operation at their mobile home.

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By Deborah McDermott

seacoastonline.com

By Deborah McDermott

Posted Apr. 13, 2014 at 2:00 AM

By Deborah McDermott
Posted Apr. 13, 2014 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

In the small town of Sydney, Maine, population 4,200, a father and son were arrested Thursday on charges of sex trafficking for running a brothel out of their home with half a dozen women. That same day, two people in Litchfield, Maine, population 3,600, were arrested on the same charges for conducting a similar operation at their mobile home.

Just two weeks earlier, three Gorham, Maine, men were arrested on sex trafficking charges for arranging for a 19-year-old woman to engage in sex acts with strangers for money.

In February, police arrested two Massachusetts men in Salem, N.H., on charges they coerced a 15-year-old runaway into having sex with five or six clients a day for money.

"People think of this as a big-city problem, and it's not. They don't realize this happens next door to you, and survivors are people who may look just like you," said professor Erin Corcoran of the University of New Hampshire School of Law.

Ten years ago, almost no states were dealing with the issue of human sex trafficking — defined as a situation in which one or more people coerce another person to engage in a sexual act against her or his wishes.

"In 2004, only a handful of states had laws on the books," said Brittanny Vanderhoof, policy counsel for the Polaris Project, an organization that advocates for stronger laws in the United States and internationally to combat human sex trafficking.

Today, only two states lack a sex trafficking statute, she said, although the Polaris Project also tracks whether states have instituted related measures like law enforcement training, asset forfeiture, labor trafficking, victim assistance, access to civil damages and vacating convictions for sex trafficking victims. Vanderhoof said the Polaris Project ranking, the only one of its kind for states, is intended to nudge them to take a look at this issue.

"There's this idea among some states that it's not happening here so we don't have to worry about it," she said. "The usefulness of the map is not to shame states but to say, 'You can do better.'"

In 2013, based on 2012 data, Maine scored a 5 out of 10, while New Hampshire scored a 3 — making it one of the worst states in the nation in terms of providing protection to victims of sex trafficking. But officials in both states anticipate that will change completely when next year's rankings come out. Major legislation has been enacted or is on the verge of enactment in both state legislatures this session, and Maine passed a comprehensive bill in its Legislature's previous session as well.

In New Hampshire, Senate Bill 317 creates "a huge sea change in how victims are looked at," Corcoran said. It makes prostituting minors a felony, provides protection from criminal prosecution or juvenile delinquency proceedings to minors who have been trafficked, makes it a felony to force a person to engage in sex or labor acts against her or his will, and allows victims to sue their trafficker for damages.

"This legislation is intended to get us up to speed" with the rest of the country, Corcoran said.

"We know that New Hampshire is not immune and that trafficking is not just an urban problem," said Amanda Grady Sexton of the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. "It's happening right in our communities and it needs to be stopped."

The bill has made it through the Senate and the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee will hold a hearing on it Tuesday, April 15. If it makes it to the desk of Gov. Maggie Hassan, she is likely to sign it.

"Gov. Hassan believes we must take action to address the heinous crime of human trafficking," said her communications director, Marc Goldberg.

Corcoran said the fact that 150 people signed up for a recent law school conference on human trafficking, including service providers, law enforcement, prosecutors and state agency officials, indicates the breadth of interest in the issue.

The Maine Legislature has passed two major pieces of legislation — one last year and one just signed into law by Gov. Paul LePage on Thursday. The 2013 law expands the definition of human trafficking to criminalize the victimization of another individual for profit. The law also renames "promotion of prostitution" to "aggravated sex trafficking" and "sex trafficking," depending on the circumstances of the offense. It also toughens penalties for multiple violations.

Maine Rep. Amy Volk, R-Scarborough, took another step in this legislative session. Her bill, signed into law last week, makes sex trafficking a defense to the charge of prostitution, which could result in a lack of criminal conviction for the prostitute.

"Law enforcement has said they're more interested in getting to the pimp than the prostitute," Volk said. "What this allows police to do is to say to the victim, 'If you can show us you're a victim by turning in your pimp, we won't prosecute you.'"

Sex trafficking perpetrators are also fined $500 to $1,000, to go into a special victim compensation fund. This could be used for housing, therapy, medical care or myriad other needs of victims.

Asked why she filed the legislation, Volk said, "I'm a Christian, and this is an issue Christians have been talking about for many years. I thought it was a no-brainer. I didn't realize people thought it didn't happen here."

These laws are terrifically important, said Destie Holman-Craig of the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

"In most cases, it's local people with local pimps," she said of prostitution in Maine. "We'll see pimps from Boston or even New York City coming here because they know there's a low awareness of the issue, so there's less risk. And there's a lot of opportunity because we have a lot of poverty in rural areas. We see young people take the bus to the city (like Portland or Bangor), and these guys are waiting for them right there."

Holman-Craig said there's a tandem awareness going on now, on the part of both victims and law enforcement. "Clients we've been seeing for a while for other issues, when we say, 'By the way, have you had sex in exchange for a place to stay?' They're saying, 'Yeah, of course.'"

Meanwhile, police are also becoming more aware of the issue. In Maine, for instance, last Thursday the Auburn Police Department partnered with other organizations to host the conference "Not Here: A Call to Action Against Human Trafficking." It is the fourth year the conference has been held. Among the speakers was Thomas Delahanty, U.S. attorney for Maine, who called sex trafficking "a serious problem" that is getting more and more attention.

"It's being reported more, and people are recognizing what it is, including the U.S. Justice Department, which is giving it higher priority," he said.

Putting the focus on the pimp instead of the prostitute only makes sense. "Instead of focusing on the act of the defendant, we're starting to look at the broader picture and find out what's happening underneath that one act," Delahanty said.